“Nassim” — Written by Nassim Soleimanpour. Directed by Omar Elerian. A new guest performer for every show. Presented by The Huntington through October 27.
By Shelley A. Sackett
“White Rabbit, Red Rabbit,” Iranian Nassim Soleimanpour’s absurdist adventure, which sits on the boundary of comedy and drama and burst into London’s West End in 20212, changed my opinion about audience participation in theater. Not a big fan of the genre, I left the 2016 performance at New York City’s Westside Theatre a convert.
Conceived while 29-year-old Soleimanpour was barred from leaving Iran for refusing military service, the play challenged its audience on issues of trust, obedience and complicity while demolishing the fourth wall and having a different actor read the script for the first time at each performance.
The words were Soleimanpour’s; the implicit messages were the idea of someone trying to speak through someone else and the question of what censorship means.
So when The Huntington announced it was producing the eponymous “Nassim,” I was on board. Originally commissioned and produced by London’s Bush Theatre in 2017, the drama, comedy and social experiment is even more timely today.
Fueled by curiosity, compassion and a longing for global community, Soleimanpour employs his trademark style of having a different actor cold read his script in front of a live audience. Karen MacDonald, the “empress of Boston theater,” had the honors the night I attended, and she rose to the task with her usual humor, flair and skill.
For 75 intermission-less minutes, MacDonald read from a script (minus the italicized stage directions) projected on a jumbo screen, as its pages were moved by disembodied hands. The play’s theme, a meditation on how foreign languages divide us, slowly comes into focus. While Soleimanpour’s plays have been performed in dozens of languages worldwide, they’ve never been performed in Farsi in his native country because of governmental repression. This situation particularly distresses him because his mother, who still lives in Iran, has never heard or seen one of her son’s plays performed in her (and his) mother tongue.
Although “Nassim” at times feels insubstantial and the gimmicky aspect often crosses over into banal cutesiness, its positive message of global community through communication and understanding prevails. Mimicking a language class, Soleimanpour’s script invites the audience (and especially MacDonald) to experience the beauty and magic of his native language, Farsi. We discover through the timeless and borderless device of fairytales.
Naheem Garcia
“Once upon a time” are our first Farsi words, along with “mom.” “You have to learn your mother tongue,” MacDonald reads.
In Act Two, Soleimanpour’s script turns more autobiographical, and we find out that he wrote the play in Farsi with words he wanted to learn in English. The play, which celebrated its 479th performance and has been staged all over the world, was intended as a means for its author to meet new people and be taught new words all over the world.
“A writer’s heart will always beat in his mother’s tongue,” Soleimanpour says through MacDonald. “But isn’t it amazing how languages work? They bring us together; they tear us apart.”
It would be too much of a spoiler to reveal all the surprises in store, but this charming and timely piece of experimental, experiential theater is a must for anyone curious about more than the shiny, big productions that often dominate conversation, reviews, and box office receipts. Take a chance with this little gem; you won’t be disappointed.
David and Sergio David Modigliani reviewing documents.
By Shelley A. Sackett
Heirlooms hold the keys that can unlock family histories. For many, these stories remain untold, preserved in artifacts that are passed from generation to generation and display case to display case. They sit silently on a shelf, admired and gathering dust. Award-winning documentarian David Modigliani’s family was different.
When his grandfather, the Italian-born economist and Nobel Prize winner Franco Modigliani, died in 2003, David’s father Sergio inherited 19 boxes of documents. He kept them in a storage unit, where they remained taped up and unopened until COVID, when David decided to check out what was inside them.
He and documentary producer Willa Kaufman had begun dating just before the country went into lockdown during the pandemic. The boxes were a perfect diversion.
What they found inside was a treasure trove of family archives including letters, personal diaries, and fascist spy documents detailing his family’s harrowing times fighting to survive during the rising tide of antisemitism in 1930s Italy. That was the start of “Pack One Bag,” a 10-part podcast that traces his family’s escape to America.
In the boxes, there were scores of love letters between Franco, then a 19-year-old economics student, and Serena Calabi, the daughter of Jewish publishing baron, Giulio Calabi (known as “The King of the Books”) and the love of his life. Although David had grown up hearing the fairytale stories about his grandparents’ epic romance and their escape from fascist Italy for the United States in 1939, these letters did more than just preserve their love; they bore witness to the perils they confronted as Benito Mussolini and his Italian Racial Laws fueled antisemitism.
Most eye-opening was the 25-page letter that Giorgio, Franco’s brother who stayed behind in Rome, wrote and sent to David’s grandfather just after the war. It detailed, in “harrowing, page-turning prose,” his experience of navigating his family and shepherding them through a gauntlet of horror during the Mussolini regime.
“Reading this letter was chilling and opened up a much deeper understanding of the universe my grandfather could have experienced had he not been so fortunate to fall in love with my grandmother and escape fascist Italy with her family before the outbreak of war,” David told the Journal.
The professional storyteller in him knew he had to get to the bottom of his own family’s story. Toting his grandparents’ love letters, he and Kaufman went to Italy to speak to surviving family members, retrace his family’s steps in Rome and Bologna, and discover the answer to a question that haunted him: Why didn’t they all just flee Italy when they could?
The couple spent months piecing together a story that includes narratives of relatives left behind, recorded in their octogenarian voices. They plumbed state archives and even interviewed former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi, one of Franco’s students. They returned home knowing they had the raw material for a thrilling and timely story. But how to best tell it?
Film has been David’s medium ever since falling in love with the collaborative process of documentary storytelling while a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin. He has won numerous awards for his feature films, which have run on Hulu, Netflix, PBS, and HBO.
But this time was different. There were no great visual assets and most of the main characters are no longer living. His coproducer reminded him that podcasts are at heart a visual medium. “A podcast is more akin to reading a novel than film. The audience must construct and build through their own imagination the world you are trying to create for them,” David said.
Actor/producer/writer Stanley Tucci signed on as executive producer and the featured voice of Giulio Calabi. David voices his Nonno Franco and Nonna Serena.
As a kid, he had done impersonations of his grandparents for his sisters and cousins, and when his collaborators heard them, they agreed that it would be an authentic way for him to bring his grandparents to life. David always meant to record them, and regretted that he didn’t prioritize that before they died. “I felt very close to them when I was recreating them for the podcast,” he said.
Episode 1 of the series David and his team created débuted at the 2023 Tribeca Festival as “Shalom, Amore.” It won the Jury Award for Nonfiction Audio, citing its “unexpectedly moving narrative that blends the personal, political, and comical” as it takes listeners “on a journey across generations and continents.”
Later, he changed the name to “Pack One Bag” to reflect the details of his family’s story. When his great-grandparents began illegally ferrying money across the border into Switzerland in the 1930s, they packed one bag so it would look like they were going on vacation. When the Nazis banged on doors in Rome’s Jewish ghetto in 1943, they instructed them to pack one bag.
“This story is about people who happened to be Jewish in the 1930s in Italy,” David said, “but it is a universal story. It applies to people in any environmental or political crisis who have to leave their homes. What do you take with you?”
David, 44, grew up as a “Reform Jewish kid in Brookline” and was especially connected to Judaism culturally and historically. He vividly understood how being Jewish had impacted the physical locations of his family. “My grandparents were in Belmont largely because of their Jewish identity and because they left Italy just in the nick of time,” he said.
He hopes that listeners can find some answers for the present moment from the way his family confronted their situation. “The question at the heart of ‘Pack One Bag’ is ‘when confronted with fascism, do you stay or flee? What if you can’t?’ ” David said. Noting the upswing of nationalism, totalitarianism, and antisemitism at home and globally, he is reminded how fascism needs an “other” to survive and thrive, a subset of the population that the majority is motivated to antagonize, scapegoat, and persecute.
He cites his great-grandfather Giulio as advice to those being “othered.” “You resist as best you can for as long as you can, and then you flee,” David said.
“For those that have the privilege to exist inside a fascist society without being persecuted, the onus is on us to preserve democracy and to attempt to return society to a more inclusive and tolerant place.”
To listen to the podcast and for more information, visit packonebagshow.com.
When her son was little, Liz Polay-Wettengel tried to get him interested in soccer, which his older brother had loved at that age. Instead, all three-year-old Elias wanted to do was memorize lines from the movie “Frozen” and perform them in the living room.
“We knew he needed to try the stage,” she told the Journal.
By the time he was four, Elias Wettengel was on his way to an acting career that would culminate with his casting in the role of young Jacob/Heini in the new production of Tom Stoppard’s award-winning “Leopoldstadt,” which runs at the Huntington Theatre through Oct. 13.
The sprawling drama follows multiple generations of the fictional Jewish Merz-Jacobowitz family in Vienna in the 20th century. As it moves from 1899 to 1955, the play showcases everyday family dynamics against the ever-changing tides of revolution, war, antisemitism and assimilation.
Stoppard was inspired by the experiences of his own family; all four of his grandparents and three of his mother’s sisters lost their lives in the Holocaust. His stirring masterpiece takes a bold look at what it means to be Jewish for one’s self, in the eyes of others, and in the broader context of history.
“Leopoldstadt” won four Tony Awards in 2023, including Best Play, and two Laurence Olivier Awards, including Best New Play, when it débuted in London’s West End in 2020. The Huntington Theatre production is presented in association with the Shakespeare Theatre Company and features a cast of 15 adults and four children.
Elias, now a 13-year-old student at Collins Middle School in Salem, feels honored to play the roles of Jacob and Heini in such a meaningful play. “As a Jewish kid, the play has extra meaning for me. I sometimes get chills during the scenes,” he told the Journal.
“Leopoldstadt” is an emotionally intense and politically timely production, especially for American Jews. Elias and his mom handle the challenges of his role through open and honest conversations about what being Jewish means today and about how one’s ancestors can shape future generations.
It helps, according to Liz, that her brother-in-law Jason Stark teaches genocide studies. “We answer any questions that arise about death and the Holocaust. We don’t shy away from hard questions and encourage Elias to ask them,” she said.
For Elias, the resilience of family is an important message of the play. “I hope audiences see how generations of Jewish families relate, and the continuous impact they have on each other’s lives throughout time,” he said.
Family is also a major focus of his own religious practice. One of his favorite pieces of Judaism is that his family celebrates holidays like Sukkot by opening their home to everyone who wants to participate, “Being Jewish is always visible in our lives. I love sharing my Jewish culture with my family, friends and community,” he said. He is studying for his bar mitzvah, which his family will host in late 2025.
Elias’s theatrical journey began at the Salem YMCA, and he has since had featured roles in regional productions and in several film and television projects. He acknowledges that balancing the demands of school and performing is sometimes hard, but feels lucky to be a student in a district where his teachers assist him. “They come up with a plan to make sure I’m supported both as an actor and a student,” he said.
He is inspired by the actors he has the opportunity to work with, whether in community theater, films or the current play at the Huntington Theatre, which he hopes will serve as a stepping stone to appearances in additional professional productions. “I’d love to go on a tour or perform on Broadway!” he enthused.
As for advice to four-year-old youngsters who think they want to become actors? “Don’t be sad when you don’t get a role you want. Be happy to be part of theater in general. It isn’t about the role; it’s about the experience,” he said. Θ
David and Sergio David Modigliani reviewing documents.
Heirlooms hold the keys that can unlock family histories. For many, these stories remain untold, preserved in artifacts that are passed from generation to generation and display case to display case. They sit silently on a shelf, admired and gathering dust. Award-winning documentarian David Modigliani’s family was different.
When his grandfather, the Italian-born economist and Nobel Prize winner Franco Modigliani, died in 2003, David’s father Sergio inherited 19 boxes of documents. He kept them in a storage unit, where they remained taped up and unopened until COVID, when David decided to check out what was inside them.
He and documentary producer Willa Kaufman had begun dating just before the country went into lockdown during the pandemic. The boxes were a perfect diversion.
What they found inside was a treasure trove of family archives including letters, personal diaries, and fascist spy documents detailing his family’s harrowing times fighting to survive during the rising tide of antisemitism in 1930s Italy. That was the start of “Pack One Bag,” a 10-part podcast that traces his family’s escape to America.
In the boxes, there were scores of love letters between Franco, then a 19-year-old economics student, and Serena Calabi, the daughter of Jewish publishing baron, Giulio Calabi (known as “The King of the Books”) and the love of his life. Although David had grown up hearing the fairytale stories about his grandparents’ epic romance and their escape from fascist Italy for the United States in 1939, these letters did more than just preserve their love; they bore witness to the perils they confronted as Benito Mussolini and his Italian Racial Laws fueled antisemitism.
Most eye-opening was the 25-page letter that Giorgio, Franco’s brother who stayed behind in Rome, wrote and sent to David’s grandfather just after the war. It detailed, in “harrowing, page-turning prose,” his experience of navigating his family and shepherding them through a gauntlet of horror during the Mussolini regime.
“Reading this letter was chilling and opened up a much deeper understanding of the universe my grandfather could have experienced had he not been so fortunate to fall in love with my grandmother and escape fascist Italy with her family before the outbreak of war,” David told the Journal.
The professional storyteller in him knew he had to get to the bottom of his own family’s story. Toting his grandparents’ love letters, he and Kaufman went to Italy to speak to surviving family members, retrace his family’s steps in Rome and Bologna, and discover the answer to a question that haunted him: Why didn’t they all just flee Italy when they could?
The couple spent months piecing together a story that includes narratives of relatives left behind, recorded in their octogenarian voices. They plumbed state archives and even interviewed former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi, one of Franco’s students. They returned home knowing they had the raw material for a thrilling and timely story. But how to best tell it?
Film has been David’s medium ever since falling in love with the collaborative process of documentary storytelling while a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin. He has won numerous awards for his feature films, which have run on Hulu, Netflix, PBS, and HBO.
But this time was different. There were no great visual assets and most of the main characters are no longer living. His coproducer reminded him that podcasts are at heart a visual medium. “A podcast is more akin to reading a novel than film. The audience must construct and build through their own imagination the world you are trying to create for them,” David said.
Actor/producer/writer Stanley Tucci signed on as executive producer and the featured voice of Giulio Calabi. David voices his Nonno Franco and Nonna Serena.
As a kid, he had done impersonations of his grandparents for his sisters and cousins, and when his collaborators heard them, they agreed that it would be an authentic way for him to bring his grandparents to life. David always meant to record them, and regretted that he didn’t prioritize that before they died. “I felt very close to them when I was recreating them for the podcast,” he said.
Episode 1 of the series David and his team created débuted at the 2023 Tribeca Festival as “Shalom, Amore.” It won the Jury Award for Nonfiction Audio, citing its “unexpectedly moving narrative that blends the personal, political, and comical” as it takes listeners “on a journey across generations and continents.”
Later, he changed the name to “Pack One Bag” to reflect the details of his family’s story. When his great-grandparents began illegally ferrying money across the border into Switzerland in the 1930s, they packed one bag so it would look like they were going on vacation. When the Nazis banged on doors in Rome’s Jewish ghetto in 1943, they instructed them to pack one bag.
“This story is about people who happened to be Jewish in the 1930s in Italy,” David said, “but it is a universal story. It applies to people in any environmental or political crisis who have to leave their homes. What do you take with you?”
David, 44, grew up as a “Reform Jewish kid in Brookline” and was especially connected to Judaism culturally and historically. He vividly understood how being Jewish had impacted the physical locations of his family. “My grandparents were in Belmont largely because of their Jewish identity and because they left Italy just in the nick of time,” he said.
He hopes that listeners can find some answers for the present moment from the way his family confronted their situation. “The question at the heart of ‘Pack One Bag’ is ‘when confronted with fascism, do you stay or flee? What if you can’t?’ ” David said. Noting the upswing of nationalism, totalitarianism, and antisemitism at home and globally, he is reminded how fascism needs an “other” to survive and thrive, a subset of the population that the majority is motivated to antagonize, scapegoat, and persecute.
He cites his great-grandfather Giulio as advice to those being “othered.” “You resist as best you can for as long as you can, and then you flee,” David said.
“For those that have the privilege to exist inside a fascist society without being persecuted, the onus is on us to preserve democracy and to attempt to return society to a more inclusive and tolerant place.”
To listen to the podcast and for more information, visit packonebagshow.com.
Jayne Atkinson, Fiona Robberson in Dorset Theater Festival’s Timely ‘True Art.’ Photos by T Charles Erickson
By Shelley A. Sackett
It was good planning to arrive a little early for the Dorset Theatre Festival’s world première of “True Art.” The bewitching set begged a closer look. Center stage, basking in Renaissance splendor, is Michelangelo’s “Leda and the Swan,’ mounted on a rich burgundy panel. Stage left and right are mirror rows of vertical metal grids, each loaded top to bottom with the A-list of coveted museum possessions, from Pollack to Picasso and Monet to Miro.
These were very good replicas, so good in fact, that even up close, even knowing I was in a converted barn in Dorset, Vermont, and not on Museum Mile in New York City, for a split second, I felt like I was on hallowed artistic ground. Although stage prop replicas, these paintings could evoke the same kinds of feelings as the real McCoys.
Is that a bad thing? Is “fake art” valueless? Can only authentic art evoke valid feelings? Is an emotional reaction to counterfeit art necessarily counterfeit too?
It turns out one of the central questions playwright Jessica Provenz asks in her biting, suspenseful, thought-provoking, and funny newest play is in this same vein: In the provenance of the art world, what makes something — and someone — authentic? Is it the art or the artist? Is it what’s on the canvas or what the critics have written about its artist?
Charlie Reid
And, more importantly, how much does its history and reputation as an “important” work of art influence whether and how much we do — or feel we should — like it?
Provenz has a light touch and a gift for writing colloquial dialogue, so her play doesn’t bog down under the weight of these and other important issues she raises. What a gift to make your audience simultaneously laugh, gasp, and contemplate, which she does from the moment the play starts.
The action begins in media res at Christie’s auction house. Between the Swader’s set and Joey Moro’s projections, it is as if we are in the audience as auctioneer Buddy Silver (Bob Ari) coaxes higher and higher bids out of imaginary art collectors. On the block is “Leda and the Swam,” the lost Michelangelo painting recently discovered in a farmhouse somewhere in France.
The painting sets a new record for the most ever paid for a work of art.
The scene switches to a bench in front of a painting in a gallery at an iconic and prominent museum, where we meet 22-year-old Lauren Anders (a wonderfully talented Fiona Robberson), a midwestern art history major and the new temp of Jodi Dean (the always fabulous Jayne Atkinson). Dean is the 60-something curator of Renaissance art and has a reputation for eating her interns alive. She averages one per month.
Bob Ari, Robberson
Enter J.J. Winchester (Charlie Reid), a flirty, slouchy young man around Lauren’s age who seems to have the keys that open every door in the museum yet has no articulable reason to be there. We get a lot of information from their casual and clever conversation.
Jodi, J.J. tells Lauren, is known as “Dragon Lady” and has had to claw her way to her position of power. She is the only woman being considered for the museum directorship and J.J.’s dad, the museum’s chairman of the board, is the lone holdout on her achieving this life-long goal.
The two are attracted to each other, and the actors bring an innocent carnality and spot-on delivery to their roles. Lauren tells J.J. she intends to become Jodi’s new intern. J.J. bets Lauren she won’t last the day as a temp.
As she scampers off to face the lion’s den, J.J., clearly smitten, gifts her with the tip that Jodi likes her coffee black, extra sweet.
The Swader’s marvelous set then swivels to reveal Jodi in her lair. Atkinson is perfect, playing Jodi as a gladiator and survivor who, from time to time, reveals emotions that surface through the chinks in her armor. She greets Lauren with daring and disdain. She immediately sets ground rules and lets Lauren know the lay of the land.
From the get-go, Lauren stands her ground while slyly taking the wind out of Jodi’s confrontational sails. She predicts and fulfills her desires (like coffee taken black with extra sugar) while pretending to defer, bow and scrape. Lauren is, after all, a Jodi wannabe. She is as determined and ambitious as her boss, willing to do what it takes to get where she wants to go.
Jodi is on her way to an important press conference. It turns out that Jodi and Buddy, Christie’s auctioneer, art dealer, and her sometime boyfriend, are the ones who found the lost Michelangelo masterpiece, “Leda and the Swan.” Her Renaissance department was the anonymous bidder that purchased it.
It also turns out that Lauren did her thesis on that very painting. She does not share her boss’s enthusiasm for the painting or the story of how it was miraculously discovered. Her challenge is to figure out how to navigate in a dangerous sea of deception and high stakes while maintaining her integrity and her job.
Against this thriller backdrop of smoke and mirrors, truth and lies, Provenz weaves a fabulous page-turner plot that examines two meaty topics. First is a deep look into what it takes for a woman to achieve power in a male world and the lengths she will go to retain it as she reaches the twilight of her career.
The second is the whole notion of authenticity, both in the art world and the world of everyday honor and decency. Do facts matter? Does the truth matter? Does getting it right matter as much as getting ahead?
A woman in power? Facts mattering? Timely indeed.
Robberson, Atkinson
Director Michelle Joyner has an all-star cast to work with, and she milks their talent and Provenz’s script for all they’re worth. Atkinson, known on stage and television, has the chops to tap into both Jodi’s inner Dragon Lady and her insecurities with humor and humanity. Ari plays Buddy with equal parts smarm, charm, and menace. Reid is chameleon-like, understated and enigmatic one minute, and taking the helm and righting the ship the next.
But it is Robberson as Jodi’s protegée Lauren who really shines in every scene. She has a physicality of gesture and facial expression that dares the audience to look away from her. Hopefully, DTF theatergoers will see more of her next season.
“True Art” is chockful of great lines, high production value, and stellar performances, making it a theater lover’s trifecta of bounty. Yet it also leaves us with plenty to spark after-theater conversations, which are the measure of the most satisfying experience.
Jodi is at her rawest and most honest at the play’s end, when she looks herself in the eye, acknowledges the corners she cut and compromises she has made for the sake of her ambition, and wonders if it was worth it.
“What if my life’s work is wrong? What am I then?” she asks softly. What indeed.
“True Art” – Written by Jessica Provenz. Directed by Michelle Joyner. Scenic Design by Christopher and Justin Swader; Costume Design by Barbara A. Bell; Lighting Design by Patricia M. Nichols; Sound Design by Jane Shaw; Projection Design by Joey Moro. Presented by Dorset Theatre Festival, Dorset, Vermont. Run has ended.
Emilia Suárez (Juliet) and Rudy Pankow (Romeo) in A.R.T.’s Romeo and Juliet. Photo Credits: Nile Scott Studios and Maggie Hall
By Shelley A. Sackett
Diane Paulus, Artistic Director at American Repertory Theater, has raised the bar on production values so often, we’ve come to expect the unexpected from her. From 1776 to Pippin to Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Gloria: A Life, Jagged Little Pill, Waitress, SIX, and more, theatergoers in Boston have benefitted from her inspiring collaborations and razor-sharp skills to enjoy Broadway-bound productions right in their own backyard.
Romeo and Juliet is no exception.
Working with a creative team of stellar talent, Paulus has breathed contemporary life into Shakespeare’s 16th-century well-known and oft-quoted masterpiece.
The tragic story is a familiar tale of star-crossed lovers caught in the crosshairs of a family feud so old that its origins have faded from memory. Paulus said she wanted to focus on the couple’s feelings for each other and highlight their love instead of their families’ hate. By using movement, evocative music, lighting, and a spectacularly efficient set, she creates the perfect stage upon which such a transformation can — and does — happen.
As with all Shakespeare (and especially in productions where there are no projected captions to serve as guides), a plot primer can be helpful.
Juliet Capulet (Emilia Suárez of Hulu’s Up Here fame) and Romeo Montague (Rudy Pankow of Netflix’s Outer Banks) meet and fall instantly in love at a masked ball hosted by Juliet’s parents. They profess their devotion when Romeo, unwilling to leave, climbs the wall into the orchard garden of her family’s house and finds her alone at her window. Because their well-to-do families are enemies, the two are married secretly by Friar Lawrence (the fabulous Tony Award winner and multiple nominee, Terrence Mann).
When Tybalt (Alex Ross), a Capulet, seeks out Romeo in revenge for the insult of Romeo’s having dared to shower his attentions on Juliet, an ensuing scuffle ends in the death of Romeo’s dearest friend, Mercutio (Clay Singer). Impelled by a code of honor among men, Romeo kills Tybalt and is banished to Mantua by the Prince of Verona (Jason Bowen), who has been insistent that the family feuding cease.
Sharon Catherine Brown and Suárez
Juliet’s father (Terence Archie), unaware that Juliet is already secretly married, arranges a marriage with the eminently eligible Count Paris (Adi Dixit). The young bride seeks out Friar Laurence for assistance in her desperate situation. He gives her a potion that will make her appear to be dead and assures her that if she takes it, he will arrange for Romeo to rescue her. She complies.
Romeo, uninformed of the friar’s scheme because a letter of explanation has failed to reach him, returns to Verona on hearing of Juliet’s apparent death. He encounters a grieving Paris at Juliet’s tomb, and reluctantly kills him when Paris attempts to prevent him from entering. There, he finds Juliet in the burial vault. Unaware that she is only sleeping, he gives her a last kiss and kills himself with poison. Juliet awakens, sees the dead Romeo, and kills herself. The families learn what has happened and end their feud.
At Wednesday’s preview performance, magic and pathos were on stage from the opening scene that revealed Amy Rubin’s simple, thick butcher block set bathed in spot-on, evocative lighting (Jen Schriever). Actors push the heavy door open, symbolically revealing the opportunity for closed doors to open. Later, the flexible set will metamorphosize into Juliet’s balcony, a tomb and a party. All of that possibility is communicated in the first few moments.
Background rumbling and emergent music (created by sound designer Daniel Lundberg and the composer of the play’s original music, Alexandre Dai Castaing) setthe tone for the opening fight scene, a West Side Story-esque stand-off between two teenage gangs. These are the Capulet and Montague clans, and the fury that boils in their blood is masterfully choreographed by fight consultant Thomas Schall and director/choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. When the scene freezes into a bellicose tableau, the depth underlying this hostility is fixed on each light-bathed face. (Note: West Side Story is a modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet that shares many themes and tells a similar story but is set in the 1950s in New York City’s Upper West Side).
Pankow, Terrance Mann
The impacts of visual imagery, light and sound throughout the two and one half hour (one intermission) production never wane. Rubin’s set frequently pivots to frame two or three scenes, providing simultaneous glimpses of different versions of the same event. Early on, as Romeo and Juliet prepare for the party her parents are throwing, Romeo and his buddies cavort stage left while Juliet preens stage right. The effect is as charming as it is enthralling.
Other special production moments are the use of globe lights (brilliant!), a warpath drumbeat soundtrack (by Dai Castaing), and the opening scene after intermission, when Juliet, wrapped in a white sheet, is lit like a fairy and the soft plunk of a harp highlight her delicate dancer’s gestures.
While enough can’t be written in praise of its production value, the real stars of Romeo and Juliet are the actors and the Bard’s sumptuous language. Cast standouts include Suárez as a stunningly lithesome Juliet, Nicole Villamil as Lady Capulet, Juliet’s mother, and the truly awesome Mann as Friar Laurence.
These three (and several other) actors seem to savor the play’s rich lines, lingering over some and articulating with a deliberateness that allows the audience to savor along with them. Unfortunately, some (most notably Singer as Mercutio) race through their lines, swallowing some of the glorious puns and humor that balance the play’s tragic overtones. A suggestion to A.R.T. is to consider following Shakespeare on the Common’s lead and provide projected captions. Absent that, audiences might want to read the play (it’s a short-ish one!) before or shortly after seeing this production. The added appreciation value is well worth the time spent.
Pankow, Suárez
Paulus ends the play on a note of hope despite the carnage that the Verona families’ feud has wrought. As Romeo, Juliet, Thibault, and Mercutio are eulogized and buried, the full cast is on stage. Bright white light bathes the scene as the entire community comes together to bury their dead and plant a garden. Despite the gloomy peace that reigns, the Prince of Verona reminds its citizens, “All are punished. For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and Romeo.”
As Capulets and Montagues sow flowers and trees, we imagine Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and the innocence and hope of starting fresh and turning the page. In the current climate of political and environmental angst, who can’t benefit from a message that hints at the possibility of restoration, revitalization, and rebirth?
Romeo and Juliet’ – By William Shakespeare. Directed by Diane Paulus. Movement and Choreography by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui; Original Music Composed by Alexandre Dai Castaing; Scenic Design by Amy Rubin; Costume Design by Emilio Sosa; Lighting Design by Jen Schriever; Sound Design by Daniel Lundberg. Presented by American Repertory Theater at the Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle St., Cambridge through October 6.
‘Wish You Were Here’ — Written by Sanaz Toossi. Directed by Melory Mirashafi. Scenic Design by Lindsay G. Fuori; Costume Design by KJ Gilmer; Lighting Design by Amanda Fallon; Composer and Sound Design by Bahar Royaee. At Gloucester Stage in Gloucester through August 25.
By Shelley A. Sackett
“Wish You Were Here,” in its regional premiere at Gloucester Stage, opens on three frozen tableaux set in a lavish apartment with Persian-inspired décor. At an ornate make-up table, two women hover over a third clad in a billowing wedding dress. Another, wearing a red silk short kimono and huge pink curlers, is draped over a couch, a cigarette dangling provocatively from her languid hand. A fifth slouches against the wall. All appear to be in their late teens/early 20s.
Suddenly, the three scenes simultaneously spring to life, all five women speaking to and over each other.
The friends have gathered to prepare for the wedding of Salme (Josephine Moshiri Elwood), the first among them to get married. She is the straightest, most religious and purest of the five. She prays faithfully and frequently on behalf of her friends, hoping their lives will be set on the path she deems is in their best interest.
The girls are chatty, animated, without a care in the world other than outwitting the wittiest and shocking the most prudish among them.
Shideh (Cerra Cardwell) neurotically frets over whether she will get into medical school. Nazarin (Deniz Khateri), a sullen eye roller, plans to become an engineer. She and best friend Rana (Aryana Asefirad), the kimono girl, vow never to marry and have children. Zari (Isan Salem), the youngest of the group, longs for sex. Vagina and large penis jokes are their favorites.
Although the setting is 1978 in Karaj, Iran, a city about 26 miles from Tehran, these five rambunctious friends could be straight out of the pajama party scene in “Grease.” They are silly, lewd and disarmingly intimate. They bicker and clown. They mock and soothe. They constantly touch each other and tease about sex and their bodies.
They paint each other’s nails, remove each other’s unwanted hair and perform the pre-wedding night olfactory “pussy audit.” Their favorite game is the telepathic “What am I thinking?” Through the boisterous banter and loving friction, their deep commitment to this quintet is unmistakable.
The atmosphere inside this posh apartment crackles with pop culture and the promise of youthful dreams of adventure, travel and sex. Although “there’s static in the air,” the girls are unconcerned about anything outside their snow globe existence. They hear the protests outside and are aware that the Shah has left, but blithely ignore the shape-shifting world around them.
Over the next 100 minutes, we will drop in on this living room and this group another 10 times, following them from 1978 until 1991. Mirroring the upheaval experienced by their country (from the Shah’s exile to the Islamic crackdown and revolution led by Khomeini to the American hostage crisis to the Iran-Iraq War), these five will face marriage, loss, the impact of misogynist religious zealotry and the torment of dreams snuffed out.
The first intrusion of the outside world into their cocoon comes the next year.
Before the Shah’s exile, Jews lived safely beside their Muslim fellow Iranians, flourishing and blending in. Muslims and Jews lived side by side, and religious freedom was a nonissue. Affluence and status mattered much more. With the Islamic Revolution, all that changed.
When we encounter the group for the next wedding (1979), there is turmoil in the streets. The Shah is out, and Khomeini is in. This turbulence directly affects our friends when Rana, the “cool Jewish girl and Nazanin’s best friend,” and her entire family go missing. Dishes were left in the sink, and there was no sign of a struggle. No one has seen or heard from them since.
Each girl deals with this loss in telling and different ways.
Cerra Cardwell, Elwood, Khateri
“She’s fine,” Nazanin says, although, as another points out, “A whole family of Jews missing is usually not a good sign.” Only Salme tries to find her through prayer and the internet. Later, in Act II, one wonders, “Where do we all go when there is no one trying to locate us?” a recurrent rhetorical and thematic thread.
By the third wedding, there may be Bee Gees disco in the background, but the internal atmosphere of the apartment has been infiltrated. The radio crackles with static, but when it is clear, Nazanin is nearby, hoping to hear a word about what is going on outside their doors.
As religious piety and intolerance increasingly rule the land, the group dwindles further. Salme embraces religion and prayer but meets an untimely death when she drowns while swimming in her burka. Shideh takes the opposite path, fleeing to the United States to study medicine. Nazarin and Zari, who never really cared for each other, are the sole sorority sisters.
“Do you love me because I’m the only one left?” Zari asks when they rekindle their friendship. They bond out of desperation and loneliness, vowing to remain in Iran and feed the flames of their newfound friendship. Yet Zari applies for a green card “just to be safe” and Nazarin is caught up in the torment of disappointment and confusion.
She disdains prayer, but believes in its power. She wonders every day how her life might have turned out had she been able to become an engineer had the winds of politics been blowing in her favor. She desperately misses Rana, yet never tried to find her. She swore she would settle for no less than true love, yet admits on her wedding day that she doesn’t love the man she is about to marry.
Iran, her homeland, is a dead end for everything that matters to her, yet she steadfastly refuses Zari’s offer to get her a green card. “Why,” she wonders aloud, “don’t I want to leave?”
When Rana finally gets in touch, 10 years after leaving, Nazanin and she pick up exactly where they left off. “Are you still a Muslim?” Rana asks. “Are you still a Jew?” Nazanin fires back, not missing a beat.
After five years in Israel, Rana now lives in California and works in a Pizza Hut. Suburban America may be spiritually lifeless, but she will never return to Iran. Instead of turmoil, revolution, persecution and flight, her children will know only one home, one that can’t inflict the kind of heartbreak and devastation she suffered.
Toossi revisits many of the same themes of emigration, national identity, home and displacement she so brilliantly tackled in her Pulitzer Prize winner, “English.” “Who do you think of when you think of where you’re from?” she asks through her characters. Who defines you? Where do you find your home? Is it a place? The people? Shared experiences? Where you grew up or where you live now?
Unfortunately, “Wish You Were Here” misses the high mark set by “English.” Toossi doesn’t flesh out these girls’ backgrounds and individualities; they lack nuance and depth. They live in an impenetrable bubble, teetering on a tipping point, and we have a hard time caring.
Director Mirashrafi does the best she can with a script that compresses 13 years into 100 minutes and 10 scenes that are confusing because they give too little context about the raging Iranian politics. There is a Dramaturgy & Timeline in the Playbill (which is most helpful if read BEFORE the play starts), but that doesn’t take the place of timeline references within the script, especially where the play is meant to cover so much ground in such a short time.
Sometimes it was impossible to tell that a new scene in a new year had started until it was almost over. It was also often impossible to tell who was who, especially at the very beginning when each girl seemed to be shouting, the pace was a little too quick and the girls’ names were indecipherable.
Nonetheless, it’s always a pleasure to attend a performance that may take several days of percolating before its impact bubbles up. In addition to the timely issues she raises, American-Iranian Toossi provides a compassionate multi-layered glimpse of Iranian society. Several scenes, although they also present speed bumps in the drama’s flow, are poignant reminders of the beauty and mystery at the heart of Islam.
There are joyful elements of traditional music, dress, and custom. The full silence during Salme’s long prayer scene lets the audience (and the less observant and devoted girls) through the keyhole of the sweet, nourishing elements of a religion that has been hijacked and weaponized by militant male power grabbers determined to dominate women and infidels.
It’s too bad Toossi didn’t spend more time exploring this element, as well as giving her characters a third dimension. Who knows? That might have elevated this play to the level we know she has the chops to write. For more information, go to https://gloucesterstage.com/
The cast of Gloucester Stage Company’s production of “Wish You Were Here.” / JASON GROW PHOTOGRAPHY
ByShelley A. Sackett
Jewish Journal
Iranian-American playwright Sanaz Toossi covers a lot of ground in “Wish You Were Here,” at Gloucester Stage Company through Aug. 25. She follows the evolution of a group of friends from 1978 to 1991 in Karaj, Iran, an industrial city 26 miles from Tehran. The revolutionary political and societal upheavals experienced during these years are the backdrop for Toossi’s bigger focus: The everchanging tides of female friendship.
The play opens in a lavish apartment with Persian-inspired décor. Two women hover over a third swathed in a billowing wedding dress. Another, wearing a short kimono and huge pink curlers, drapes over a couch, a cigarette dangling from her hand. A fifth slouches against the wall. All appear to be in their late teens/early 20s.
Suddenly, the set springs to life, all five women speaking to and over each other.
The friends have gathered to prepare Salme, the first to get married and the most religious of the five. Shideh neurotically frets over whether she will get into medical school. Nazarin, a sullen eye–roller, plans to become an engineer. She and best friend Rana, the kimono girl, vow never to marry and have children. Zari, the youngest of the group, longs for sex.
Although set in 1978 Karaj, these five could be straight out of the pajama party scene in “Grease.” The atmosphere crackles with pop culture and the promise of youthful dreams of adventure, travel, and intimacy. The girls can hear political protests outside the window, but unconcerned, they ignore the shape-shifting world around them.
Over the next 100 minutes, we will drop in on this living room and this group another 10 times, following them from 1978 until 1991. Mirroring the upheaval experienced by their country (from the shah’s exile to the Islamic crackdown and revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini to the American hostage crisis to the Iran-Iraq War), these five will face marriage, loss, the impact of misogynist religious zealotry, and the torment of dreams snuffed out.
Its first intrusion comes when they gather the next year for Zari’s wedding.
There is turmoil in the streets. The shah is out and Khomeini is in. Rana, the “cool Jewish girl” and Nazanin’s best friend and her entire family, is missing. They departed suddenly, leaving dishes in the sink and no clues. No one has seen or heard from them.
Before the shah’s exile, Jews lived safely beside their Muslim fellow Iranians, flourishing and blending. Jews began settling in Iran around 2,700 years ago, and their years under the shah during his reform plan of 1964-1979 are considered a golden age. In 1978, the Iranian Jewish population numbered 80,000 and the vast majority was middle or upper-class. There were 30 synagogues in Tehran alone.
With the Islamic Revolution in 1978, all that changed overnight. Jews became enemies of the Islamic Republic – Zionists in league with Israel. Over two-thirds emigrated rather than face certain confiscation of their property and even execution.
Each girl deals with the loss of Rana in different ways. “She’s fine,” Nazanin says, although, as another points out, “A whole family of Jews missing is usually not a good sign.” Only Salme tries to find her through prayer and the internet.
As religious piety and intolerance increasingly rule the land, the group dwindles further. Salme embraces religion and prayer, but meets an untimely death when she drowns while swimming in her burka. Shideh takes the opposite path, fleeing to the United States to study medicine. Nazarin and Zari, never close, now seek solace in each other.
“Do you love me because I’m the only one left?” Zari asks when they rekindle their friendship out of desperation and loneliness. Zari applies for a green card “just to be safe” and Nazarin is caught up in the anguish of disappointment and confusion.
Nazanin disdains prayer, but believes in its power. She wonders every day how her life might have turned out had she been able to become an engineer, but she refuses Zari’s offer to get her a green card. “Why,” she asks aloud, “Don’t I want to leave?”
Toossi revisits the same meaty and timely themes of emigration, national identity, home, and displacement she so brilliantly tackled in her Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “English.” “Who do you think of when you think of where you’re from?” she asks through her characters. “What defines you? Is it a place? The people? Shared experiences? Where you grew up? Where you live now?”
Unfortunately, “Wish You Were Here” misses the high mark set by “English.” Toossi doesn’t flesh out these girls’ backgrounds and individualities; they lack nuance and depth. They live in an impenetrable bubble, teetering on a cataclysmic tipping point, yet we have a hard time even caring.
We also have a hard time following the play’s storyline because Toossi provides few contextual clues. There is a timeline in the playbill (which is most helpful if read BEFORE the play starts), but that doesn’t take the place of scripted points of reference.
Nonetheless, Toossi proffers gifts, most notably compassionate, multilayered glimpses of Iranian society. Several scenes, although also speed bumps in the drama’s flow, are poignant reminders of the beauty and mystery at the heart of Islam.
There are joyful elements of the traditional music, dress, and custom. The full silence during Salme’s long prayer scene lets the audience (and the less observant and devoted girls) through the keyhole of the sweet, nourishing elements of a religion that has been hijacked and weaponized by militant male power-grabbers determined to dominate women and eradicate infidels.
It’s too bad Toossi didn’t explore this element more. Who knows? That might have been the magic ingredient that could add a sorely lacking third dimension to her characters and elevate this play to the level we know she has the chops to write.
Cast of “The Queen of Versailles” at Emerson Colonial Theatre. Photo Credit Matthew Murphy
By Shelley A. Sackett
There is no more perfect setting for a play about Versailles and consumerism gone awry than Boston’s own Colonial Theatre, with its gold, glitz, and Rococo splendor. On opening night last Thursday, the festive crowd for “The Queen of Versailles,” the Broadway-bound musical extravaganza, was dressed as if auditioning as contemporary cast extras with bling, boas, and bottles of champagne.
But that was nothing compared to Dane Lafrey’s lavish Louis XIV worthy set, thankfully on pre-curtain-rise display to accommodate selfies and elicit oohs and aahs.
On walls as tall as the Louvre hung oil paintings with ornate gold frames. Chandeliers descended, and palace workers dressed in period wigs and frocks went about their menial duties, dusting and fussing. The staff joked about the comical and pompous King Louis XIV (Pablo David Laucerica), who proudly admits he commissioned the Palace of Versailles “because I can.”
This first musical number primed the audience, and they were cocked and ready for the main attraction. When the royal set lifted along with the curtain, revealing Kristin Chenoweth seated on stage, they exploded into the kind of boisterous adulation reserved for, well, royalty.
Kristin Chenoweth
From the get-go, it was evident the audience’s admiration was well-placed. Chenoweth is a pint-sized spitfire with super-sized talent. She belted out her first song in a clear, articulate voice that was perfectly projected. What a joy to be able not only to hear the lyrics but also to understand them. Stephen Schwartz’s score is smart, funny, and sharply satiric and deserves no less, especially since much of the action takes place in song. (Question for the production team — why no song list?).
In a nutshell, the show is about the riches-to-rags-to-resurrection story of Jackie and David Siegel, whose saga was the topic of Lauren Greenfield’s award-winning 2012 documentary by the same name. Its filming is where Act I opens.
Clad in one of Christian Cowan’s sensationally tacky costumes, Jackie literally holds court in the midst of the construction site of her and time-share mogul husband David’s (a superb F. Murray Abraham) life-fulfilling project: building the largest private home in America.
Why are they building this 18-bedroom, $100 million home? It’s simple when you have champagne wishes, caviar dreams, and deep, deep pockets. “Because we can,” Jackie boasts, echoing her French idol.
F. Murray Abraham
Their 90,000-square-foot house is based on the mirrored palace with a few modifications: Versailles, France, is swapped for Orlando, Florida, and Queen Marie Antoinette has morphed into Jackie. In terms of pointed social commentary, especially since 2016, their story is particularly poignant, and the show milks it dry. “Anyone can become royalty in America,” is the Siegel family credo – or president, even.
Jackie takes us (as the documentarian’s camera rolls) backstage to her humble beginnings. She was raised in Endwell, New York, where she worked several minimum-wage jobs and honed her appetite for success and power at the encouragement of her simple and decent parents. The family’s favorite show was “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” which they watched together with near-religious reverence.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering in 1989 and polished her gutsy in-your-face, tell-it-like-it-is style at her first job with IBM. Though Jackie may dress like an airhead, it masks underlying book and street smarts. Coupled with her cutthroat drive, she is a force to be reckoned with.
After moving to Florida with her husband, he becomes abusive, and she enters the Mrs. Florida America beauty pageant as a way out (she won), determined to make her pipe dream of great wealth come true. Following her divorce, the now single mom does just that when she meets and, in 2000, marries the financier and “Timeshare King,” David Siegel.
The two travel to France for their honeymoon dressed like Barbie and Ken (“This may surprise you, but we’re not old money,” David dead-pans). When Jackie goes gaga over Versailles, it mirrors every selfie-obsessed narcissist’s sex dream; David declares his ever-lasting devotion in the language that is the vernacular of their relationship: he will build one for her.
The rest of Act I (a hefty 90-plus minutes) details Jackie’s voracious appetite for children (she births 7 and adopts one more, her niece Jonquil) and things. The oldest daughter, Victoria, the product of Jackie’s first abusive marriage (a very good Nina White), is, in Jackie’s estimation, overweight and under-acquisitive. Her clueless mother is tone-deaf and blind to her daughter’s unhappiness. If anything, she adds to it. Jackie, the quintessential material girl who craves its empty calories, urges Victoria to curb her fondness for the one thing that comforts and nourishes her — food.
In Victoria’s solo (in which White shines), she describes the pain and heartbreak she suffers as her mother’s daughter. “Pretty always wins. The only way for me to win that game is not to play it,” she says.
Her sister/cousin Jonquil (Tatum Grace Hopkins), on the other hand, takes to excess like a fish to water. “I could get used to this,” she croons.
Act I closes in 2008, as the Siegel’s world comes crashing down alongside the global financial and subprime markets. Overnight, they go from prince to pauper, monitoring electricity with the same zeal they had reserved for padding their warehouses with stuff. David retreats to his study, demanding Jackie pull the plug on the documentary now that their lives have gone sideways. Jackie, however, has the soul of a phoenix and a cat’s nine lives. She’s not going down with the ship. As God is her witness, she will get her Versailles back.
Act II opens with one of the show’s musical highlights, a gorgeous duet with Jackie and Marie Antoinette (the fabulous Cassondra James). In a rare moment of acknowledging and really listening to Victoria, Jackie realizes the toll all this has taken on her. The girl is depressed and adrift. She needs some roots and parenting.
The two pay a visit to Jackie’s parents, who open Victoria’s eyes to a new world. For the first time, she sees that some people (her grandparents among them) are actually happy with what they have. They have found the magic of “enough.”
Although mother and daughter sing another lovely duet about little homes with big hearts, Jackie chides Victoria when she says she’d like to stay in Endwell. Jackie reminds her of what great wealth can buy, renewing her vow to get Versailles back. “Just because we can doesn’t mean we should,” Victoria says, sounding more like a parent than a child.
The Siegels ultimately regroup after their personal and financial setbacks, but they have paid a heavy price. They keep the unfinished Versailles and even manage to exploit Victoria’s tragedy, manipulating a spin to their own financial and marketing advantage. They are deplorable peas in a morally bankrupt pod, easily two of the least sympathetic characters we’ll ever meet on stage.
Yet, along with the glitterati in the audience, I too rose in a standing ovation, surprised by how much I had enjoyed the show.
Chenoweth is the little engine that can, relentlessly driving the show uphill when its length, digressions and sour message threaten to derail it. She is a prodigious talent and she brings it to bear on her portrayal of Jackie. We may want to dismiss the self-appointed queen as a crass example of the worst capitalism can spawn, yet Chenoweth’s nuanced portrayal leaves the door open enough to glimpse the shadow of admiration and sympathy. And boy, can she sing!
The rest of the cast is a star-studded who’s who of Broadway luminaries. One can only hope that the “Queen of Versailles” that reaches the Big Apple is leaner, more focused, and more deserving of the gifted artists and advance hype it has attracted. Many scenes (especially a cowboy-themed one) belong on the cutting room floor, as do a couple of the many flashbacks to King Louis’s days.
The show has great bones, an engaging score, and a tornado of a star. All it needs is disciplined tweaking, refining, and shortening before it travels south. It deserves to take Broadway by storm.
“The Queen of Versailles” — Music and Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz. Book by Lindsey Ferrentino based on the documentary film “The Queen of Versailles” by Lauren Greenfield and the life stories of Jackie and David Siegel. Directed by Michael Arden. Scenic and Video Design by Dane Laffrey; Costume Design by Christian Cowan; Choreography by Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant; Music Supervised by Mary-Mitchell Campbell; Lighting Design by Natasha Katz; Sound Design by Peter Hylenski. Produced by Bill Damaschke, Seaview, and Kristen Chenoweth, through her production banner Diva Worldwide Entertainment. Presented by Emerson Colonial Theatre at 106 Boylston St., Boston through August 25.
“OVO” – Guide and Founder – Guy Laliberté. Artistic Guide – Gilles Ste-Croix.Writer, Director and Choreographer – Deborah Colker. Costume Design by Liz Vandal. Set Design by Designer Gringo Cardia.Musical Composition and Direction by Berna Ceppas.Lighting Design by Éric Champoux. Presented by Cirque de Soleil atAgganis Arena, 925 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA. Run has ended.
By Shelley A. Sackett
“How did they do that?” exclaimed my companion with all the amazement and awe of a seven-year-old as a cluster of red-clad creatures slid down poles horizontally and screeched to a halt inches above the floor.
Whether seven or seventy-seven, the artistic magic and athletic showmanship of a Cirque de Soleil performance never gets stale.
This year’s show, OVO (Portuguese for “egg”), takes us on a magical mystery tour into the secret world of insects, where crickets, ladybugs, and spiders live inside a colorful and chaotic world. Crickets chirp nonstop. The music is whimsical, and the sets are as fabulous and creative as the costumes. There are trampolines, climbing walls, and enormous monitors that screen vibrant close-ups of nature and psychedelia.
And then there are the amazing acrobatic acts, which stretch the imagination and defy the human body’s normal physical limitations.
OVO‘s creator and director, Deborah Colker, took inspiration from the world of insects. The idea for OVO was not to be about the acts, dancing, or insects but about movement. The movement of life permeates the entire show, with creatures flying, leaping, bounding, and crawling.
All Cirque de Soleil shows have underlying stories. OVO takes place in the teeming, creepy crawling world of the insect world, where critters eat, play, flirt, squabble, and horse around. The nonstop action and vitality are a riotous world of energy, emotion, and chatter.
A mysterious, quirky insect arrives in this microcosm carrying a mysterious egg. The community gathers around it, curious and a little intimidated. A ladybug catches the newcomer’s eye, and he quickly takes his eye off the egg as he pursues his new love.
Eventually, the mystery of the egg and its symbolic representation of the cycles of life, death, and rebirth are revealed.
The meat of the evening, however, is in the acrobatic performances. A performer high above the stage emerges from a cocoon as a butterfly and flies away. Acrobat “crickets” bounce between a trampoline and a rock wall in frenetic leaps and bounds. A seemingly jointless spider weaves a mysterious web.
There are even nightclub-esque singing numbers, on-stage live musicians, and audience participation numbers. These are more annoying and distracting than entertaining for the true Cirque fan and feel like additions meant to pad the show and run out the clock. The techno beat starts to grate, and the ladybug shtick gets very old very quickly. Even the kids in the audience grew fidgety, especially in Act II.
This reviewer would have preferred a shorter, intermission-less show with more meat and less filler.
Although not the most thrilling or satisfying Cirque de Soleil, OVO’s originality, grace, and world-class international talent is nonetheless as astonishing as always. If you can’t be at the Olympics, this might just be the next best thing.
InSights 